Five Months

Weight- 15 lbs
First of all, let me just say that Haddie Grace definitely looks like Chris; he now has a child he can claim as his own :)
Eat-  I just started giving Haddie Grace cereal a few days ago.  (So about a week after she turned 5 months.)  So far we ain't doing too hot with it.  She uses her tongue to push the spoon and cereal out of her mouth, so I'm pretty sure more of the cereal gets on her bib, in her hair, and on her hands than actually in her belly.  I'm sure this is normal and it happened with Phoebe too, I just don't remember.  I don't like messes and food and babies is a mess.   Anyhow, she's started to eat cereal.  I have some sweet potatoes and apples in the freezer that I made a couple weeks ago (we ended up with more than we could eat so I figured instead of throwing them away I could go ahead and make some baby food) so I'll probably try to give her some sweet potatoes soon.
Since we never had much success with Phoebe eating (she didn't eat baby food very well and then once she finally started eating purees, she would not eat regular food well...) and I grew to hate making pureed baby food, I am very interested in the baby-led-weaning approach to introducing solid foods.  We might give it a whirl.  We'll see.  Thanks Mums make lists for the idea!
For the first couple days I was feeding her in the Bumbo.  (I fed Phoebe in the bumbo for months before transitioning her to a travel booster seat tied down to a chair which she still uses!)  But Haddie Grace will not sit still in that thing.  I know bumbos are not supposed to be able to tip over, but she looks like she could do it.  It makes me nervous to leave her sitting in it on the table while I'm getting her food ready and cleaning her up.  So I found a high chair at a consignment sale the other and we are loving it!

Sleep-  Still not sleeping through the night.  Boo.
Play-  This child will be full-fledged crawling in a couple weeks I am sure.  She is up on her hands and knees, belly off the ground, and scooting forward and backwards (with a few face plants thrown in the mix).  As soon as she figures out how to coordinate her arm and leg movement she'll be across the room in no time.

She can't fully sit up without support yet, but almost.  She can sit up by herself for a few seconds, but not quite well enough for me to leave her sitting up yet.

She is loving this excersaucer that Courtney is letting us borrow!  Thank you!

Haddie Grace just got her first tooth on Monday!  She had been fussy and chewing on her hands excessively and cold chewies for the last 10 days, so I was wondering if she was starting to get a tooth and sure enough her front bottom right tooth just broke through the gum!

We are still using cloth diapers, and let me tell you two in cloth diapers is a handful.
Phoebe loves "holding" (sometimes dropping...) her little sister.

We had our first sick visit to the pediatrician (for either child) last Monday too.  I had actually called (again) about her diaper rash and they said to go ahead and bring her in since the prescription they had given me over the phone two weeks earlier was not helping.  When she woke up from her nap Monday afternoon she felt a little warm, but I didn't take her temp because I was trying to get everyone out the door to get to the doctor's appointment on-time.  Over the weekend she had had a low-grade temp, but I thought she was teething, so I didn't think anything of it.  (Since she just got a tooth I don't think my assessment was far off.)  I was planning on getting HG a couple more vaccinations while we were there, so I asked the nurse to take her temp.  She had 102.4 temp.  The doctor didn't care about her diaper rash.  After several days of high fevers, vomiting and diarrhea, multiple visits to the doctor, 4 blood draws, a catheter, and 2 shots of antibiotics, she was diagnosed with a kidney infection.  (Thankfully because of a diaper rash we caught it early...)

We are still on antibiotics now, but she is feeling much better.  We have to go up to the Children's Hospital in Charlotte next week to have a couple more tests done in regards to this kidney infection.  No Fun.  And oh, those antibiotics...not helping the diaper rash.

how cute are these shoes that a friend made for Haddie Grace?

18 Months

Phoebe turned 18 months on Sunday.  A year and a half...crazy.  I'm going to apologize now because I just re-read this and it is somewhat of a random stream of consciousness.  Oh well, this is what I think about my baby big girl and remember about the past month.

She still loves to swing and blow bubbles.  Although she looks slightly terrified in the picture, she really does love going down slides- even big ones.

This past month can be characterized mainly by snotty noses, saline spray, and a bulb syringe.  She never once had a fever, but we've had a lot of runny noses this past month.  Sometimes it is hard to believe how much snot can come out of such a little person.  Phoebe has gotten four more teeth this  month- all of her canies (cuspids).  So hopefully we will be done with teething for awhile now.  I think this might have contributed to all her congestion as well.
I have no idea how much she weighs etc.  I'm guessing somewhere between 19 and 20 lbs-  still below the growth chart I am certain.  We'll go to the doctor for her 18 month appointment closer to the end of the month.  I did make an appointment with a new pediatrician, since I had finally thrown in the towel with our last one.  Thanks for all your suggestions and advice.  Hopefully we will have better luck this time.  Right now I'm in the process of gathering all her medical records to deliver to the new doctor.  Of course you can't get everything from your pediatrician- why would the medical community make things so easy?  You have to go to each individual specialist for records. So that means I have now contacted and signed medical releases from 6 different medical doctors/facilities.  Fabulous. We successfully and easily made the transition to a big girl bed about 3 weeks ago.  Chris parents' offered us his old bunk beds, and we graciously accepted.  Someday Phoebe will move to the top bunk and share the bottom with her little brother or sister, but until then I will awkwardly bend down around my pregnant belly to put her in the bottom bunk over the 30 year old wooden rails.  This is going to kill my back sooner rather than later.  I only mis-judged the distance once and banged her head into the bottom of the top bunk- whoops.

Basically we took the queen size guest bed out of the room and replaced it with the bunk beds.  The crib is still in the same room.  She shows no interest at all in the crib anymore. I have dreams of white furniture in a baby/toddler girl's room someday, but this is working great for now. Phoebe sleeps well at night and naps once in the afternoon, typically for an hour and a half.   She still sleeps with her paci.  I guess this is ok??  I have no idea, but between moving to a big girl bed, attemping potty training, and the new baby this is one battle I have no desire to fight.  She only gets it in the bed.  She still is not a good eater and I'm not going to harp on that anymore.  I'm going to feed her yogurt puree baby food and Trader Joe Organic O's for her until she's five.

I really can't remember why I did this now, but I started putting Phoebe on the potty several weeks ago.  I had no expectations, really.  But she's done great.  I mean she likes sitting on the potty and probably goes to the potty {on the potty} an average of twice/day.  But I really don't know where to go from here.  She likes the potty.  She knows she gets a treat if she pees or poops on the potty.  On occasion she has gone to the potty saying "potty" and when I put her on it she will pee or poop.  She also has started to tell me when she has pooped, but this is certainly not every time.  

You're going to think I'm crazy- and I am.  But I started reading about the 3 day potty training "boot-camp" where you hunker down, stay home for 3 days, with a naked kid and try to teach them to use the potty.  Really, Phoebe is probably a bit young for this.  But I decided to give it a try.  Why?  I don't know- I'm crazy.  So today was day #1.  I didn't do the completely naked thing- I used training pants.  I needed to contain the mess somehow.  Chris reminded me that we did this with a puppy about a year ago this can't be too much different.  Let me tell you- it was a little different.  Anyhow, it was a messy day- which is fine.  I expected it to be.  Again I don't really have any expectations for these 3 days I just figured I try it now or we wait till after the baby is born- so another 3 months  (This was the only 3 days in a row where I didn't have anything planned and could actually stay home all day with her before the baby gets here)  I'm going to stick it out for 2 more days and we'll see what happens.  Not having 2 in diapers would be amazing...  It hasn't been frustrating because I don't have any expectations, but it is quite a bit of work.  (Frustration is the result of unmet expectations....  That's our motto anyhow.) Any potty training advice?  Do I just keep putting her on the potty when it is convenient for me/I have time and hope she gets it?  Or do I just stop and wait until she is a little older?
She loves, loves, loves her baby dolls.  They do EVERYTHING she does: eat with a spoon, sit in her booster seat, go for rides in the stroller, take baths, sit on/in (we might have had a couple dunking incidents...) the toilet.  She hugs, kisses, and loves on them.  Hopefully this is a good sign??  But she has also been pretty clingy this past month.  She wants to be held or in our laps A LOT.  She is a cuddle-er for sure and I think it will be pretty traumatic when there is another baby spending so much time in mommy and daddy's arms.

Phoebe loves kissing my belly and pointing to "mommy's baby"   She also LOVES to talk on the phone.  She frequently walks around with a toy phone babbling away and ALWAYS wants to hold the real phone and talk when I am trying to use it...

She is quite the talker and readily points out objects and foods that she knows.  She is also starting to learn to count.  She counts to four relatively well.  Our speech therapist has been very impressed with her progress.  Phoebe is even started to say some high frequency sounds like "t" and "sh" which is great because that means she is able to hear and "parrot" those sounds despite her hearing loss.
She is still a social butterfly and tends to command the attention of other kids in the church nursery and loves sharing her toys not only with the RUF students but also with random people in doctor's waiting rooms and other mom's in her music class.  She says hi to everyone in the grocery store and easily makes friends wherever we take her.
Phoebe has started to get attached to random objects this past month  such as her toothbrush, spoons, and a container of Vick's vapor rub, etc.  She will get ahold of one of these items and will carry it around with her ALL day and then even fall asleep with it.  I think its weird, but whatever.  

That's all I got.  I love my big girl more than I could have ever imagined.  She brings us so much joy and excitement.  I love watching her learn and discover new things.  Here's to another great month!  

17 Months

I want to give a little attention to my sweet baby girl who is now 17 months old!  Hard to believe and even harder to believe she's not going to be "the" baby anymore.

I don't know how tall she is, but she has certainly gotten taller because her pants started looking like high-waters a couple weeks ago...  She is now wearing 18 month clothes.  This is the first time she's worn a size larger than her age.  (She was always the 8 month old in 6 month clothing...)  No, she hasn't gone through any big growth spurt yet.  According to our scales she's weighing in at 19 lbs.

I told Chris we would go ahead and turn her car seat around after the first of the year, so big girl is about to love getting a view of something other than the back seat while driving.  Really, she's going to be so much happier.  I had plans of keeping her rear facing till she was 2 (according to the AAP recommendations) but even the best plans are meant to be changed.

Phoebe still is not eating well.  She refuses to even try most foods.  And there are still only about 5 or 6 foods that she will eat.  I reverted back to making baby food for her because yogurt is the only thing she consistently eats.  She certainly has an affinity for smooth cold food.  So the only way I can get her to eat any meat or veggies is to mix the pureed baby food in with the yogurt.  I'm not proud of it, but I don't know what else to do.  The girl eats a lot of yogurt.
She has had a recent love of apples too.  Well really she just likes to point out apples and gnaw on them.  She won't eat apple slices, but she likes to take little bites of a whole apple.  I think she likes trying to suck out the juice more than anything.

We laugh because Phoebe has been talking up a storm these past couple months!  So much for those stupid doctors who said she couldn't hear and made such a big deal about it...  I'm sure we'll go back to the ENT at some point because she certainly does have a documented loss, but I'm still sick of their tests and referrals.  So for now I will continue to cancel appointments.  She is like a little sponge repeating everything you say.  She's done very well stringing two words together to say phrases like "up please" and "read book"
We've been trying to play more with baby dolls to prep her for being a big sister.  She got some more babies for Christmas that she can push around in strollers, feed, and bathe.  She loves giving the baby kisses.

Knox is still her best friend and I think deciding to get a dog when she was 5 months old was probably one of the best decisions we've ever made.  It was rough for about 6 weeks, but totally worth every mess I cleaned up in the house and every trip I made with him out in the rain.

Phoebe shut them both in there together.  This was not my doing...

We went back and forth between 1 and 2 naps between 15 and 17 months, but we are officially back down to one.  She goes down around 1-1:30 and sleeps for about an hour and a half.  She's still sleeping well at night.  More often than not (probably about 4-5x/week) she wakes up at some point between 1:30 and 3:30am and cries/screams for about 5 minutes and then goes back to sleep on her own.  Weird, but we just let her be.  Actually I don't think Chris even wakes up...  But this is one reason why I am hesitant for the new baby to share a room with Phoebe.  They certainly will share a room eventually, but the plan is for the baby to stay in our room for now.
My latest frustration has been our pediatrician.  Well I never loved her.  She's not bad.  She just never really addressed my questions in what I felt like was an appropriate or thoughtful way.  I was also frustrated by the multiple specialist referrals we had early on as it related to her weight and development.  And quite frankly I've never been super impressed with the office staff.  But the last time I called the doctor's office with a question, the nurse or medical assistant or whatever her title was was SO RUDE.  I mean really, it was ridiculous.  And then when we went in for a vaccination the same lady walked into the room gave her the shot and proceeded to walk out without saying 1 word to me.  Rude and quite unacceptable.  We will not be returning.  But how do you find a good ped?  We are on the search.
In the next couple weeks (really the next time I make my monthly trip to WalMart) I'm planning on getting her a little toilet seat and some M&Ms.  I haven't read a single book about potty training and I really have no expectations or time frame, but figure I'd get her used to sitting on the potty.  You know its funny she has been telling us for the last several weeks either "I poop" or "pee-you" about 15 or 20 minutes before she messes in her diaper.  It certainly doesn't happen every time, but it has happened enough to make me think twice about it.  It has been very interesting...
Phoebe's favorite toys right now a bowling set she received for Christmas and Elmo.  She LOVES Elmo.  She still likes balls and books a lot as well.

Have a great weekend!!!

15 Months

Photo courtesy of Jessica Czerwin

Its been awhile since I've done a monthly update!  A lot has happened since 13 months!  Most new and exciting... WE HAVE A WALKER!  Yes, this is breaking news.  As of last Thursday evening, Phoebe has started walking on her own across the room, about 8-10ft.  She can also now stand up on her own initiative.  Previously when she would take 3 or 4 steps it was always with us standing her up and prompting her.  Now she will stand up and go on her own.  Mama is so proud.  And she is so proud of herself too!  I had always said I thought she would walk around 14 months...I was just a month off :)

She is quite the talker now too.  At 13 months Phoebe could say about 3 words.  Now she says about 20.  And I feel like she comes up with a new one almost every day!

15 Month Stats-

Weight- 17lbs 12oz (still below the chart... And for the record in our car seat the baby has to be at least 20 lbs in order to safely move it into the forward facing position.  This child is going to be rear-facing forever!)

Height- 29.25in (25th percentile)

Photo courtesy of Jessica Czerwin

Eating- Feeding this child is still the bane of my existence.  We eat oatmeal mixed with fruit for breakfast every morning.  I did finally get her to start eating regular oatmeal instead of just the instant kind.  I soak her oatmeal in water with kefir overnight (more on soaking your grains later) and cook them in milk for her in the morning.  She will normally have some yogurt in the morning too because at some point she will refuse to eat any more oatmeal, so you have to give her the oatmeal mixed in yogurt to help her finish.  For lunch it is almost always a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, cheese, and fruit (either strawberries or bananas now that strawberries are getting more difficult to find)  Sometimes if I am lucky I can get some bites of chicken in with the sandwich.  And then dinner might be a grilled cheese or cheese quesadilla with some sort of pureed vegetable (probably sweet potato but we've also gotten some beets recently at the farmer's market) that is always mixed in yogurt.  And then whatever else I can come up with for her to try.  She used to eat a pretty good variety of pureed veggies, now she will only eat a couple and it almost always has to be masked in yogurt.  Snacks are crackers of some variety or fruit.

So to recap she eats- oatmeal, yogurt, PB&J, bananas, strawberries, (sometimes she will eat bites of my whole apple, but will not eat apple slices), cheese, and any type of cracker.  A few times I have gotten her to eat pureed spaghetti Os (she won't eat them normal out of the can)  And she won't eat mac &cheese, which I feel like is a staple for many kids- especially ones that love cheese.

She has eaten some Chick-fil-A chicken a few times, but never more than a few bites.  If she would eat chicken, I would go to Chick-fil-A a few times/week and fall even more in love with this establishment.

I keep wondering, "where did I go wrong in feeding her?"  She got a good variety of pureed baby foods from the time she was 6 months old.  (Although she was pretty picky even then and never liked anything with chicken or any type of meat in it that I made.)   I've always offered her bits of whatever we were eating for dinner- she just always refuses them.  She will try things, she just spits it back out of her mouth 98% of the time.  Not sure what else I should have or could have done, but going to figure it out for the next one.

I've started looking some at the Feeding Family website.  It was a resource recommended to us for parents of picky eaters, so I am hoping to gain some helpful tips from that.  On my list of foods to try soon- hard boiled eggs (she won't eat scrambled) and smoothies.  Any other suggestions?

She still does pretty good with her milk.  At first she would only drink her milk out of our Born Free sippy cup.  And then almost a month ago she stopped drinking milk all together for about a week.  Weird right?  And when I finally got her to drink it again it was in a different cup.  She won't use that Born Free cup at all anymore that she used to be so attached to.  Kids are weird.  But at least she is drinking milk again so I can't complain.

I have no idea where this came from, but this is Phoebe's "new" face.  She does it ALL the time

Sleep- Because Phoebe has gotten all four of her molars over the past 6 weeks, its been a bit of a weird time as far as sleeping goes.  She goes to bed still at 7:30.  For awhile she was waking up closer to 6:30- not cool.  But now it seems like she sleeps till at least 7 normally.  Although my morning seems a lot more calm and organized when I get that extra 30 minutes until 7:30.  Naps have been rough.  She takes an afternoon nap.  Sometimes it is only an hour- that is miserable for mommy.  A few times she has slept for 2 1/2 hours- that is heavenly.  I think its going to work best for her to go down for a nap around 1:30.  The morning nap is officially gone.  I've successfully gotten her to take a morning nap about 3 times over the past month- not worth the effort.  I actually like it better because I can run all my errands or go to the gym or have play-dates guilt-free in the morning and then count on an afternoon nap.  She will sometimes fall asleep in the car running around in the morning, but she won't go down in her crib if we are just at home.

Phoebe still sleeps with a paci at night.  At around 5 months or so, we started only letting her have it in the bed.  And now she's really good.  In the morning she knows she has to "drop her paci in the bed" and leave it there.  I'm hoping she wean  herself off the paci at night soon, but that might be wishful thinking.  I think I heard (or maybe the doctor told us) that after a certain point (I don't remember what point but we are past it) sucking on the paci puts them more at risk for ear infections (something about the sucking and swallowing)  But luckily we haven't ever had any of those, so I'm not too concerned. 

Play- Phoebe's favorite toy right now is this Little People bus/walker.  I really think it was this that made walking fun and encouraged her to start doing it on her own.  When we went up to my parents house in October, we discovered that Phoebe loves cars!  We've never had any cars or played with cars, but she started driving those cars and trains across their floor saying "vroom, vroom"  No idea where she learned that from...  Other than those climbing stairs and playing in mommy's cabinets are probably the most fun activities right now.  She still likes her books, but they are not nearly as entertaining as they were a couple months ago.  

Little People Bus/Walker

She loves bubbles and swinging and we just recently started letting her play some free Fisher Price App/Games on our phone.  She loves that.  It is a great way to keep her entertained during my doctor's appointments or a long grocery trip.  She's learned a lot of animal sounds from those games too.  Oh, and she LOVES the Baby Babble DVD series.  She's learned quite a few words from it too, so that is an added bonus.  I love educational entertainment...

Randoms-  She now has 12 teeth.  All eight front top and bottom, and her four molars.  I hope we can have a break from teething for awhile...  Phoebe got her first skinned knee practicing walking outside the other day.  She apparently fell again this morning when we were outside and re-opened it because I noticed dried blood on her pants this afternoon.  She obviously wasn't bothered by it.  She is such a little cuddle bug!  She loves to cuddle up on our shoulder or in our lap.  And a lot of times when I pick her up from Mom's Morning Out or the gym nursery she is cuddled up in someone's lap.

Playing in the dirt

Apparently she will eat dirt...

Dirt makes you thirsty

13 Months...

Yep, our baby is now 13 months old.  I completely missed the 12 month update.  That one year mark is certainly one of the big milestones of childhood.  But don't worry I'll catch you up.  It has been a busy month and I haven't been feeling great so I apologize for the silence.  My parents were here for a couple weeks before her first birthday so it was fun to hangout with Cece and Grandpa for so long.

12 Month Stats
Weight- 16lbs 8oz (still below the growth chart...go figure.  Some day we will hit the bottom line)
Height- 28.75in (25% percentile)

Eat- Phoebe has been eating a lot better this past month.  It just takes lots of time and lots of patience. She is eating more finger foods, but still has a very limited palate: cheese, peanut butter sandwiches, strawberries, banana (sometimes), grilled cheese, crackers, frozen peas (sometimes), and freeze-dried fruit.  She probably eats 50% finger foods and 50% pureed baby foods still.  It must be a texture thing because I can mix in Spaghetti-Os, mashed up sweet potatoes, and rice etc. into the baby food, but she won't eat those things alone.  She also has a weird habit where she has to have her own small food container and lid to play with while she eats.  Basically this keeps her distracted and occupied while I shovel food in her mouth.  Really, she won't open her mouth unless her hands are occupied.  It is most definitely a behavioral attempt at control and I won't lie- its working.  She is totally playing me on this one.

I feel like meal times are quite monotonous.  Every morning she eats oatmeal with fruit mixed into it, yogurt, and cheerios.  Then she has a little morning snack- normally some sort of cheese or peanut butter crackers.  For lunch cheese, a bit of a grilled cheese or peanut butter sandwich, and some sort of veggie baby food, crackers, freeze dried fruit (whatever she will eat).  She might even get some strawberries if we have them and she's lucky.  And then her afternoon snack and dinner look about the same.  Hopefully she will start eating some more variety soon- like all those veggies I put on her tray that currently get tossed onto the floor...  What are other toddler friendly food?  Any suggestions?

So our big milestone this past month was transitioning away from the bottle.  Phoebe did not learn how to drink correctly from a sippy cup until she was 11 1/2 months old.  The speech therapist recommended a different couple cup options for us to try because we had gone through all Caylee's old cups and whatever cups we had gotten from baby showers with no success.  The Born Free training cup was finally our winner.  Before this cup she would only drink from soft spouted cups by biting the spout.  She would not use her lips to suck.  (And only water- she would never drink milk out of a sippy cup)

I think the long "nipple-like" spout helped

So anyhow when we went for our 12 month ped visit the doctor said "no more bottles; stop cold turkey".  She said no water in her sippy cups either- only milk.  She said Phoebe won't drink much milk for a couple days but that she would get the hang of it after a few days.  Well, we stopped the bottle completely and it took about 2 weeks for her to start drinking milk out of the sippy cup.  The doctor said she should be drinking between 12-18oz of milk daily.  We MAYBE got in 1/2oz during that first week.  I kept calling the doctor because I was nervous about her drinking so little (remember she's not getting any water either...)  But Phoebe didn't seem to mind.  Taking away the bottle was not hard; she really didn't miss it at all and had no trouble falling asleep at night without it.  I was worried that she would start waking up hungry in the middle of the night, but she never did.  And finally after about 2 weeks she cracked and started drinking her milk- probably between 12-16oz/day.

She still only drinks milk out of that Born Free cup, but she can now properly drink water out of various kinds of cups.

Sleep-  Phoebe goes to bed at 7:30pm and wakes up between 7 and 7:30am.  She naps for an hour in the morning around 10am ish and then an hour to an hour and a half in the afternoon around 2:30.  I wish she would sleep longer sometimes, but I guess so does everyone.

Phoebe has never been one to sleep anywhere.  She pretty much sleeps in her bed or in the car seat.  Anywhere else there is too much going on for her to fall asleep.  But when Mom and Dad were here we went out for brunch after church one Sunday and yes, she fell asleep in the highchair.  I was SO surprised.

Play-  Well we of course have many new toys now from her birthday.  Her favorites are a little toy wagon that she crawls into and likes to be pulled around in, and an interactive Fisher Price house.  And she LOVES her books.  She could sit and look at books for hours (okay, maybe minutes, but lots more minutes than she will sit doing any other singular thing)  She really likes Violet, a Leap Frog Dog Aunt Carol gave her last Christmas.  And a little shopping cart we are borrowing from Caylee.  She walks behind that cart a lot!  She just needs a lot of help because she can't turn it yet, so she inevitably runs into lots of obstacles and fusses until you come help clear her path.

So yes, she is cruising well now!  And bending her knees to lower herself to the ground!  I'm so proud of her.  She loves grabbing your fingers to walk (and walking behind her shopping cart).  Her balance still isn't great, but she will get it.  I had said from the beginning I thought she would walk around 14 months, but I think I'm going to be wrong.  I think it will probably be closer to 15 or 16 months, but we will see.  She has gotten quite good at climbing stairs- although I still like to be right behind her.  She really never ventures up the stairs by herself at our house.  But she has followed some older friends up the stairs at their houses- and the good news is she didn't fall because I assure you I was not around.

Knox is so tolerant

Loving playing with Grandpa's computer.  Phoebe has made our computer do things
we didn't even know they were capable of.  Unfortunately we've never been able to
reproduce any of her key strokes

Random thoughts-  We do still love our cloth diapers, but as she has gotten older she has also started peeing more at night.  She started soaking through her diapers and so for awhile we were double stuffing her diapers but finally we switched back over to disposables at night, until I broke down and ordered some hemp inserts.  Hemp is much more absorbent than cotton and a lot less bulky.  We have 2 Joey Bunz hemp inserts and they are wonderful!  I wash the diapers every 3 or 4 days so we do two nights with the hemp inserts and 1-2 nights in a disposable.

Her hair gets more and more curly every month and I love it!  This Atlanta humidity suits her well.

She is a Daddy's girl through and through!  She loves that man!  She will crawl and reach and cry for him about 100 times more than she will for me.  She cries when he leaves and gets so excited whenever daddy comes home (again if I have left she could care less when I return home)

She loves playing with Daddy's hats

Phoebe still does not have very many words.  Well to be exact, she has one word- "daddy".  But she definitely understands what we are saying and follows directions well.  It has been really fun to see her start interacting more with us by following directions.

So I must admit we never did a lot to "baby-proof" our house when Phoebe started crawling.  But we did put those little plug protectors in the outlets.  I'll be darned if this child can't get those things out in 2 seconds flat.  Honestly, they were a bit of a waste.  She would probably spend less time playing at the outlets if there wasn't anything for her to pull out...

Again I'm so sorry its been FOREVER since I've posted, but I'm back in the game and promise they will be more regular now.  Keep checking back for pictures from her 1st birthday party, updates on her hearing loss, and other exciting Bowen family news!